wow. there wasnt any mention of it on the news

Wow! Amazing pic, Coach, and I am glad it didn't develop into a tornado. Scary!

Having grown up in the Midwest, I've seen a few of these. I was skeptical at first, but you can clearly see inflow and wraparound coming in from the west, with the funnel (or the most omninous scut I have ever seen!) trying to develop maybe somewhere around Fort Meadow Pond. Anyone see any blowdown or damage near the High Schools or the Walmart area? That's not on the ground, but it's not that far off either. I would expect to hear of a couple of trees down, as the inrush starts. Wild!!! GREAT SHOT! (I am officially jealous)

The best I can figure the area is most likely between Price Chopper and Jaworek School. My child reported that the wind picked up a lot and was quite noisy from inside the school. I drove up Hosmer Street after the shot, the funnel had dissipated by then and it was full down pour in the area. Wild weather indeed! Guess I am becoming a storm chaser :)

Wow great picture but i dnt think i could ever get outta my car to take this lol

I was thinking about getting out my camera to try to get some lightning shots with a doohickey I made for the purpose, but it was over quite quickly. Lots of brilliant ground strikes, which I used to be told was because of lots of airborne hail, ice friction causing the charge to build, and without another cloud to discharge to, has to discharge to the ground, which takes a lot more energy, indicating a very powerful, compact storm.. of course, the curmudgeonly old goof may have been feeding me a total line... He also would have me detune an AM radio and would try to differentiate lightning by the sound.

Great capture Pascal! But surely thankful that it didn't fully develop and touch down! Way too close to Jaworek and a very populated area! No warnings either!

My sister was diving on 495 N and was able to see this also!!!

I emailed WBZ Meteorology a link to the picture and article and here is the response, though I imagine it is difficult to fully assess after the fact:

Sure looks like a funnel cloud but conditions yesterday were not all that favorable for tornado formation…although we had plenty of nasty looking clouds around…it may have just been a rain or hail shaft coming down from the cloud.

Terry Eliasen | Meteorologist, Executive Weather Producer | CBS Local Media’s WBZ-TV & myTV38 | 617-787-7098 | cbsboston.com

Thanks Anna! This was just one shot in a sequence I took, there was a slow rotational component to this funnel. I should have shot video instead for the weather geeks:)

Hmm. Well, I can tell you I have seen several firsthand.. And that is not a rain core. Rain cores do not curve, nor do they have what is clearly a covection band coming in from the left and wrapping around the circulation. There is clearly a rotation component, but without video it would be hard to estimate velocity. Rotation doesn't necessarily mean tornado, it's much like a skater pulling in their arms, making them spin faster the tighter the they pull in towards the center of rotation. You need inflow of warm moist air to feed that energy, and shear, which is clearly visible in the photo as the curvature to the right of the funnel. I suppose one make the case it is a Bell cloud without radar confirmation, but having seen MANY, you really don't get a more classic funnel cloud, in my humble opinion....

Aha! if you got a series of photos in relatively tight sequence, it should be reasonably easy to see the rotation. Don't be fooled that it looks slow, remember you are looking at a structure as much as two miles in height right there. "slow" visible motion from a couple of miles distance may very well be MUCH faster when closer! Can you post the other shots?

I have to back Paul on this, i think he's right on the money. Visually, all the components are there, but would definitely be more evident in a photo sequence or video. What I can offer here is that I saw this on radar, and noticed an area of rotation in the wind velocity scan at the time this pic was taken.
20 minutes later I was on the pike heading west towards Framingham and saw a ragged "wall cloud" type feature ahead. I know this can happen briefly when the leading edge bows out from a wind gust and wraps around itself, causing momentary rotation.

Man that's crazy I'd really like to see it touch ground but not harm anybody or do any critical damage of course:-)

wow my mom lives literally behind and up the street from here

Sometimes your eyes tell more than science.

According to the news last night it was a scud cloud, which is often mistaken for a funnel cloud, the difference is there's no rotation, so relax people!!!